Breathing Exercises
by Anti-Logic
Summary: It was more that his entire being had changed, that the world around him had shaken to pieces and shattered his own, only to reform the shards into a breathtaking array of stained glass." Zuko, an old routine, and a new spark.


A/N: Finally, I write something for the pwnage that is Avatar besides my old Sue story, thank God. This takes place somewhere around "The Firebending Masters," but if you haven't seen it there are no real spoilers, except for a line that you wouldn't catch unless you had. It was written in part to "Nara" by E.S. Posthumus.

Please review – one click and you can earn my undying love...or just gratitude, if you're not into the stalker thing. Pretty please?

Sadly, I don't own Avatar, just this little badly disguised fangirlism over Zuko changing sides.

* * *

She was young, hopeful eyes shining in the light of the candles before her. Breathe in two, out two. Her black hair, parted in two and splayed before her shoulders, gleamed with the simple majesty only a child could possess. Breathe in two, out two.

The flames grew and dimmed before her, waxing and waning with her breath, her hopes, her dreams. This was a wonderful game, a way to outshine the boys perhaps, or impress one in particular. A way to please her parents, or make more out of herself than an average servant or housewife could ever be. Whatever the reason, Zuko knew the game was only temporary.

As he had passed, wraithlike, through the palace, garbed fully in black and moving with the stealth that a life of too much hiding could bring, he had seen this servant girl – up late in the kitchens, using pilfered candles to perfect a technique she knew nothing of. Little did she realize what those skills would be used for if she ever became too talented. Breathe in two, out two.

The girl's expression became more concentrated, perhaps thinking that she was ready for a higher level. Slowly, carefully, she raised one hand above the steady flames, fingers gently curled towards their warmth. He watched from the corner by the door, unseen, temporarily and unexplainably distracted from the mission at hand. If she were to turn only slightly, she would see him. If she were to yell, to reveal that the traitor prince was standing in his old home dressed in thief's garb, all would be lost. He wore no mask – he refused, despite Aang's urgings. Never again.

Yes, his best chance was to keep moving, to forget about the little hand reaching out towards the promised warmth and power. He had begun to do so when he heard a startled gasp, a sure sign that she had seen him, she knew, she would raise the alarm –

No. She had only burned her hand. Cradling it to her chest, she reprimanded the fire in hushed, moody tones. In her angle to Zuko, the firelight cast sharp relief against her angrily jutting chin and added an inner light to each of the tears now lining her eyelashes. Soon she released her hand and fiercely used it to wipe the droplets away from one eye, wincing as she used the raw skin so harshly against the saltwater. She then proceeded to do so with the other eye, using the same marred hand. If it hadn't been so strange for her age, he would have said that she was punishing herself. Perhaps the game had ended sooner than either of them had expected.

Blowing her bangs out of her eyes, she once again flared the flames, higher this time, before reaching out to try again. Something was now present in her expression that he didn't like. Whereas before it had held only childish wonder and determination, it now held a more hardened concentration, solidified with what he now saw to be pure anger at the foolish mistake. The expression didn't fit the young face…

_An identity revealed in a storm of flame; "I hate you!" piercing him better than the dual swordsmanship he had taught the boy ever could_.

Some part of his mind saw his next action as logical, and although the rest of him saw it as a very bad idea, it had happened too soon to change it. The words escaped his lips like air.

"You're just going to burn yourself again if you do it that way."

Both moved in a sudden frenzy, the girl letting out a startled whimper and scrambling away from the incriminating fire, Zuko quickly attempting to angle his face to hide the scar in the shadows cast by the small flames.

Struggling to act as if it wasn't strange for a man dressed in black to be wandering around an unlit hallway of the palace in the middle of the night, he forced out a quiet laugh at her antics.

"Don't worry…I won't tell."

This was pointless; he needed to do what he was here for and leave. He had insisted on the importance of this mission to the group despite their intense opposition, and he wasn't about to come back empty-handed.

The girl still looked afraid, and he wasn't quite sure if it was of the strange man standing in the shadows, or of him actually revealing her secret. She spoke:

"Who're you?"

Her voice was anxious, but not as much as he had expected it to be. It not only contained hints of defiance, but was heavily laced with simple curiosity as well. This time the small smile came naturally – it was surprising how often that had been happening recently, and as it was this time, sometimes there was little to no reason for it.

But perhaps he took too long in answering her question, for she closed her eyes and took a shuddering breath, and as she released it and snapped her eyes open again, the flames beside her flared higher than before, just enough to expand the treacherous shadows and reveal a glimpse of his scar. He turned his face further, but to no avail; the stifled gasp she released conveyed all. He waited, tense, anticipating the shout that would lead his countrymen to attack in force.

It didn't come. After a pause:

"It's okay. I won't tell on you, either." A sweet smile.

Although he felt somewhat foolish uttering the next word to a child, he knew what it was to be young with an exciting secret. It would create a pact, solidifying her decision not to reveal him.

"Promise?"

"I promise! You can feed me to the monkey-lions if I tell!" Her face was comically serious, hand on her heart and eyes boring into his own.

"I don't think that'll be necessary."

"O' course, 'cause I won't tell."

"Right."

A brief, somewhat awkward pause.

"You said I was gonna burn myself again. Why?"

"Because you were coming at it too quickly."

"But all the best benders move fast!"

"This is different. You were…trying to tame it. It burned you, so you lashed out at it. It doesn't respect someone who comes at it in an attempt to break it. Besides, your breathing was all wrong."

"Well let's see _you _do better."

He sighed in resignation and stepped more fully into the little light the candles provided, sitting down in the meditative position he himself had used so many times when practicing the simple exercise. Breathe in two, out two.

"When you breathe, you should focus on the air rushing through your body. Imagine it starting at a straight line down your center and spreading until it fuels spiritual fire in your entire being. When you breathe out, imagine calling upon that fire from every corner of your body and either letting it flow out, as with these candles, or forcing it out, as when throwing a punch. But always let it flow through that center line, always keep it balanced. You try."

And so they practiced, he critiquing her smallest errors and she doing her best to take them to heart, gradually improving as the minutes flew by. He knew that he should really be moving on, should get what he needed before it was too late, but he found himself drawn in by the girl's successes and failures, felt the need to…to what? What could he possibly -

"Prince Zuko, why'd you leave? Aren't we the best there is?"

A sudden chill of realization flooded his spine. To instill a spark.

"Don't make assumptions. We're…I mean, the Fire Nation isn't perfect. In fact…I've learned a lot since I left."

She blinked in confusion. Her eyes were so pure, but Zuko knew that they resembled the eyes of so many of his countrymen – tainted with the false purity of ignorance, of mistaken beliefs, of prejudice and patriotism.

Not if he could help it.

"What kinda stuff didja learn?"

"Uh…it's kind of a long story."

He realized that there was a small hand on his own, and his muscle twitched under it in a natural desire to remove himself from such a personal sort of contact. But she fixed him with those eyes once again, so unshaken in their belief that her nation's cause was so utterly _right…_

Breathe in two, out two.

How could he possibly answer that question? There were so many things that had changed about him that he wouldn't know where to begin, even if he were to tell her everything. It was more that his entire being had changed, that the world around him had shaken to pieces and shattered his own, only to reform the shards into a breathtaking array of stained glass.

But…he felt something that had lurked under the surface since his childhood – a responsibility for his people. They needed to be taught to _think. _They needed to understand what was happening, and why it was wrong. Perhaps Zuko wasn't the strong sibling; perhaps it was his destiny to be overshadowed as the Avatar's companion as well. Yet this was something that he knew that he had to do, and that only he had the ability to carry out. These were _his people. _He had been born as their prince, and he would lead them. Not his father, who would unerringly lead them to their graves, or to dig the graves of others. He would be their leader, their crutch, their example, and even their comrade.

Breathe in two, out two.

And so he told her.

_A young woman in blue, her usually kind face furious and inches from his own, threatening his life in order to protect another's._

Love was a powerful thing.

_A clumsy young man transforming into nothing short of a warrior mastermind whenever anyone needed him, a mind that flowed like water but had the crushing force of ice._

No one was to be underestimated.

_A little blind girl - strong, independent, and far from sightless – remaining solidly rooted to the ground in everything she did to save her new family, and through them her old._

There was no turning back.

_A boy becoming something much deeper, something that resonated through all life and death, the world itself incarnate, in order to protect those he loved, and the entire universe besides._

This was everyone's world.

And so they sat there in the echoing palace kitchen, the pearls of wisdom and the stories behind them coming awkwardly at first, but a kind and naively inquisitive face spurring him on until they flowed, not as water, but as the flame he had come to see as a giver of life instead of a method of murder.

A companionable silence followed, the girl staring absently at the flames that were now much lower than before, the wax pooling at the bottom, shaped and reformed by a guiding flame. Her world was spinning, and it was reflected in those large eyes, but she remained silent. Children cannot remain still for long, however, and she soon found another question, one that went much deeper than she realized.

"Why are you here anyway, Prince Zuko?"

_An old man drinking tea in the shade, eyes closed, simply reveling in life itself._

"I need my knife."


End file.
